Knife Ears Saves a Marriage
by Zute
Summary: Anders and Neria are separated but come together briefly. Their marriage hangs in the balance. Will an ugly, orange scarf and a cat save them?


**Knife Ears Saves a Marriage**

****_This was written for TKLivory as a secret santa story exchange on Cheeky-Monkeys of Dragon Age forum. _

_Inspiration pulled from: "The Lyrium Wars", an oldish fic I wrote featuring Neria and Anders. The Cravendale Cats, an advertisement about cats with opposable thumbs. Oh yes, and by all the cats that have owned me include Duncan, Marigold, and Flynn, who are my current owners._

_~o~o~o~_

"Knife Ears, could you please get the door?"

Anders was deep, very deep, into research that preoccupied him around the clock. He reached out and stroked Ser Pounce-a-lot's furry orange head, enjoying the quiet contentment the elderly cat exuded.

_Elderly cat._

That was the problem, you see. No matter how you fed them, played with them, teased them, or petted them eventually a kitten would become a cat.

Cats are great, sure. An old cat like Pounce was a reliable, dependable guy. He'd share your bed and not keep you up all night ambushing on your feet. He wouldn't decide in the early, pre-dawn hours that he needed to take a good long look up your nostrils. Nope, he'd gotten all that out of his system in his first year or so of life. But Anders missed the kitten Pounce had been.

So when Pounce was more interested in napping than exploring every tiny hole and whorl in Anders' exterior, Anders had gotten another kitten. This one was Ser Bounce-a-lot. After Ser Bounce grew up, there was a pair of kittens, Rusty and Nifty. Then came Buster and Fluffums. And so it went, year after year, until the mage tower at Soldier's Peak was bursting at the seams with cats.

Avernus, Anders' friend and the senior Warden mage (by… oh, 195 years or so), decided to help Anders with the problem of kittens turning into cats. Being a cat lover, Anders wouldn't allow him to experiment on his friends, so they turned to mice, which are also soft and furry, and breed quite readily. Most of the experiments were unsuccessful, a few downright disastrous.

"Let us never speak to others of demon possessed mice," Avernus muttered over the disfigured corpse of an abomimouse, a rodent-y abomination.

"Never," Anders swore solemnly. The experiments continued for many, many years and they began to have certain successes. One day Avernus let out a whoop and shouted, "I have discovered the cure for cattenhood!" But he clutched his chest and died before he could relay the discovery to Anders. Unfortunately, his handwriting was an abomination too, so the cure remained hidden, but Anders did not give up. He continued their work and discovered many interesting things, both arcane and scientific.

At times he wondered if he were going too far. Neria had accused him of having screwed up priorities before he left Amaranthine in a huff, a couple years after that whole talking darkspawn mess. Ever since then he'd been here, helping the elder mage with his research for the last five years.

_Neria. Pah! _

She'd never apologized and neither had he. They had each retreated into their work and, other than a few tersely worded messages, had barely communicated. Such was the calamitous ending to their torrid romance. Their hand fasting hadn't held and they both clung to their bitterness even now, long after they'd forgotten exactly what it was they had argued over.

Perhaps his research wasn't as critical as the Joining potion Avernus had worked on, but they'd perfected that and sent the new recipe to Neria. Now Kittens weren't staying kittens, but they had grown into extremely intelligent creatures with opposable thumbs. When he asked the cat, Knife Ears, to let their visitor in, it wasn't just wishful thinking. Knife Ears could get the door. Whether he would or not was another matter.

"Naaaaweow," Knife Ears murped.

Anders knew exactly what that meant. "_What's in it for me?_"

"Get the Maker fucking door, bloody, stupid Knife Ears!" Anders shouted. "Look," he said more calmly, "there will be treats… just trust me, buddy, okay?"

Knife Ears overlooked the rude tone of voice and focused on the promised treats. "Yaweoow", he agreed. His human could get testy at times, one had to humor him.

_~o~o~o~_

"Get the Maker fucking door bloody, stupid Knife Ears!" Was exactly what Neria heard Anders' voice shouting. _Great! Just great. My husband is not just a bastard, now he's a racist bastard, ordering elves around and calling them names._

Neria considered turning around and leaving. She felt ridiculous standing here after not seeing her husband in five years, but Alistair had shamed her into coming.

"_Neria, you have to do something, I think he's losing his mind. The tower at Soldier's Peak is stuffed with cats. All he could talk about was inventing a permanent kitten. He said Avernus had discovered it but died before he could tell him," Alistair had said. "Speaking of which… Avernus is dead and still standing exactly where he died. Anders said he was so well-preserved he'll never rot. He thought leaving him there would be cheaper than building a statue to him."_

"_He's a jerk, Ali. You should have heard the things he said to me." _

_Alistair looked at her dubiously. "Really? Like what was so terrible you can't forgive him. You two were so in love."_

"_How could I love a man that believes that primal magic is the opposing force of creation and not spirit magic?" She sighed and shook her head. "I must have lost my mind to marry him."_

_Shaking his head, Alistair hugged his little elven friend. "No, you've lost your mind now."_

Alistair had talked her around. He reminded her of all that had happened and how fiercely they'd fought for one another. By the time he'd left to go back to Denerim she was already packing her bags, determined to give it one more shot.

_Maker! Five years…_ How did that happen? They'd been so in love that they had married in Orzammar during a war between the Wardens and the Chantry. Who would have foreseen that just a few years later they would have an argument over whose turn it was to clean the cat's box, or that it would escalate to a five-year separation?

There was a scrabbling sound on the other side of the door to the mage tower and she heard a latch opening and the door cracked open.

"Hello?" She pushed the door open wider and saw a silver tabby sitting there. Despite the nervousness she felt, and her enormous uncertainty, it made her smile that Anders still loved cats. "Well, hi kitty!" She knelt down and scratched the cat between his ears.

She looked around for the elven servant that Anders had been yelling at, but she didn't see anyone. That upset her even more. Soldier's Peak belonged to the Wardens and she wouldn't have elves, her own people, being treated that way on Warden property.

Knife Ears regarded the elf curiously. She smelled familiar to him. _Ah, yes._ That scent was on some of Anders' belongings. There was the shirt that he never wore. Of course, it was too small for him, but sometimes he would take it out and sniff it. It must belong to this female. Perhaps she was his mate. He didn't know about the mating habits of humans. Had this one come into season and was here looking to breed? He didn't see Anders fighting other humans for the right to mate, although maybe things would get more interesting now that this one was here.

"Where is Anders, little kitty?" she asked.

The cat murped and stood, leading the way up the mage tower stairs. He paused to look back every now and again to make sure the elf was still following. Periodically a pair, triplet, or quartet of cats or kittens would emerge from doorways or trot up or down the stairs, just as an excuse to get a look at the elf. The brave ones sniffed at her robe or even stood still for a pat on the head. One baby decided to climb her like a tree and she giggled despite the tiny claws sinking into her.

"Ow! Baby, no!" She picked up the wee one and cradled him in the crock of her arm. "Maker, Alistair was right. This place is stuffed with cats." Oddly, it didn't smell like cats, but Anders and Avernus would have figured out ways to keep that from happening.

Finally they reached the top of the spiral staircase and the silver tabby looked pointedly at Neria. There was a closed door just in front of them. Sure, Knife Ears could've stretched up and opened it, but why bother? Sure enough, the woman reached out and opened it.

She gasped as she took in the room that lay before her. During Avernus' years here it had been sparsely furnished, but littered with research notes, beakers, flasks, and retorts. Now it was littered with cats. She almost couldn't see Anders; he was hunched over a desk and scribbling furiously, for there were cats draped over every horizontal surface, sitting in all the windows, clustered together in sleepy knots, and spilling out of boxes.

"Anders?" she called out, her voice sounding a little nervous to herself.

Anders looked up from his furious scrawling. His eyebrows rose in surprise as he saw Neria standing framed by the doorway. "Neria? Maker…" He jumped up and started patting at his rumpled robes, trying to dislodge a vast accumulation of cat hair. "I was just about to clean up in here." He started scurrying around the room, picking up books off the floor, scooping up cats and depositing them outside the door, where they'd immediately turn and scurry back in. He even gave Avernus' corpse a quick dusting.

"Oh…," Neria looked at Avernus' perfectly preserved corpse standing in front of his lectern where he read and took notes. "Poor Avernus. When did that happen?"

Anders stopped his frantic cleaning and took a few steps closer to his estranged wife, still halfway across the room. "Two years ago, I think. I… I haven't really paid much attention to time. I've been busy." Seeing his wife opened an abyss-sized fracture in his heart. His words rang hollowly inside that chasm. _I've been busy trying not to think how much I missed you._

Neria almost said something about the cats, but she thought better of it. There's nothing like having someone enter your world to suddenly make one aware of how they looked to others. She didn't need to say anything; both of them were painfully aware of the excess number of cats.

"It's Satinalia, soon." That's what she settled on, an easy fact that wouldn't upset either one of them.

"Is it?" Anders said. "I thought it was summer still." He chuckled and scratched the scruff on his cheek. "Guess I haven't been outside in a while."

"Are the Dryden's…," she started to ask.

"Yeah, they bring me meals and wash my clothes. Nice folks." He took another hesitant step toward her. "That's Frankly."

Neria cocked her head looking at him questioningly. "Frankly?"

"The kitten," he said, pointing at the purring bundle in the crook of her arm.

"Oh!" She'd been concentrating on other things and had forgotten. "He's cute." He was cute. He was cream colored with orange rings on his tail and orange nose and ears, and sweet blue eyes.

They stood for an awkward moment looking at one another, both unsure what to say to bridge the gap of five years of grudge nursing and separation.

"Oh!" Neria remembered something suddenly. "I brought you a Satinalia gift. I made it myself." She tried to take her backpack off her back, but couldn't with the kitten in her arms. "Do you think…?"

"Oh here, let me help you." He crossed the remaining distance between them and considered whether to take the kitten and let her struggle with the backpack, or to take the backpack off her. He opted for the latter, moving her long, dark hair out of the way and sliding the straps off her tiny shoulders. She looked a little older, but the maturity just enhanced her loveliness. If anything, she looked more formidable, which was good. She'd always had a problem with people not taking her seriously. He bet they did by now.

He set the pack on a table and she went to it, rummaging through it with one hand, the other still cradling the kitten. Finally she smiled and pulled out a package. "It got a little crushed." She fluffed up the green bow, straightened the holly berry decoration, and then held it out to him. "I hope you like it. I… made it."

Anders looked at her and grinned. It tickled him that Neria would make a gift herself. Other than magic, research, and fighting, she didn't have a lot of skills. She read a cookbook once and thought she could cook because she had properly researched the subject. Her actual ability to cook remained theoretical as her few attempts yielded results that left her sobbing with frustration. So, whatever she had created for him must be very… interesting. He opened the package carefully, trying not to destroy the pretty paper and bow.

He pulled something out that looked like an orange sheep had exploded and reformed into a vaguely scarf like formation. It was long, wider at one end than the other, and had tangled fringe on both ends. "Well, this is just splendid!" he enthused. "And the color is so me!"

"I thought if Pounce got cat fur on it no one would know. But… I didn't realize you'd accumulated a few more cats."

He wrapped it around his neck and grinned at her. "Ser Pounce will be happy to know you were thinking of him." The scarf itched, but he bore up stoically. "I'll treasure this, Neria."

She smiled back at him, knowing he was being kind about her stupid scarf. She couldn't think of anything else to say to him. She wanted to yell at him for being disrespectful to his elven servant, for staying away for five years, for doing Maker knows what here and not helping her as he should be. But she also wanted to run into his arms and apologize for being stubborn, and bossy, and letting him leave without running after him. She just wanted to wipe it all away and start over.

Anders wasn't sure what he should do. Standing here with a big grin on his face was getting old quickly. He didn't have a gift for her, but she seemed to really like the kitten. "Do you want to keep Frankly? He seems to like you."

Neria looked down at the sleeping kitten and smiled. "I would like that."

"We'd better ask Knife Ears if it is all right. This is one of his," Anders said, not thinking that the racial slur his wife had often suffered was "knife ears". In his stupidity, the cat's ears were shaped like an elf's and… it had seemed funny at the time.

"Knife ears…," Neria said, her brow drawing into a frown. "Is this what you've become, Anders? I thought maybe we could…," she broke off and choked back a sob, "…but now you've become some sort of shemlen racist. I just… Oooh! Just forget it!"

She placed the kitten in his arms and yanked her backpack off the table and marched for the door. As soon as her back was turned to him the tears started rolling down her face.

Knife Ears had been watching the interesting mating ritual and realized it was going terribly wrong somehow. Anders might be an annoying human, but he was his annoying human. The cat raced around the elf and beat her to the door. He jumped onto the box placed strategically near the door handle and tapped the lock into place. What he forgot was that Neria also had opposable thumbs and she could unlock the door easily enough.

"Pfft! Hiss!" he growled, hissed, and yowled at her to let her know that she wasn't going to just walk away from Anders.

Neria yelped in surprise and backed away. "Your c-c-cat just locked the door, Anders," she stuttered, unable to believe what she was seeing. She whirled around to see her husband looking very distressed.

"Oh, Maker. You're not going to believe me… that is Knife Ears. I know, not a very good choice of name, but… I wasn't thinking clearly."

"He… he locked the door! How can he?" She'd completely forgotten the name and was now questioning the cat's manual dexterity. "Did he open the door for me earlier?" Her mouth dropped open and she stared at Anders in disbelief. "Just what have you been doing up here?"

"Well, er, research. Um, pure research. We did the sort of research that never would've been allowed at the Circle," Anders said, looking for a way to make it sound far better than it was.

"Into what, exactly?" Neria asked. She tried to keep the judgment out of her voice but was losing the battle.

"Well, Avernus was intrigued by my research and he joined me. In fact, he'd just made an astonishing discovery when he died."

Tapping her foot, Neria glared at him, waiting for an answer.

"We were looking for the cure to old age," he said. He drew himself up. _Ha! Find fault with that!_

"Old age?" Neria looked away, unable to maintain her cool if she looked at him. "And how did that lead to a cat with thumbs?"

"Well, old age for kittens. I deciphered Avernus' notes incorrectly and, well, Knife Ears…," he winced as he said the name, "Sorry. That cat was the result. He's very smart, understands language, opens doors… He does things."

Neria sagged in defeat. She'd hoped maybe Anders had grown up. "You said you would help Avernus with his research and instead you did this?" She shook her head sadly.

"After we finished the improved Joining potion, we were looking for a new project. It seemed fun."

"I think, perhaps, I should just go." She turned away from him again and Knife Ears was still there blocking her way. "Call off your cat, Anders."

"Knife Ears, stand down buddy. It's okay."

"Nawwwwrrrr!" the cat replied.

"That sounded like a _no_ to me," Anders said, shrugging.

"Anders, move the cat or I'll put him to sleep," Neria said, finally at the end of her patience.

Anders exchanged a look with Knife Ears and suddenly it was clear to him that the cat knew. _This is your mate, man, do something, _he imagined his cat saying. _You're really not just going to let her walk out that door are you?_

"No, I'm not." He meant to say it silently, answering the imaginary discussion he was having with his cat.

Neria looked at him and shook her head. "Well, fine then!" She began to move her hands, weaving a sleep spell.

"No!" Anders ran to her and caught her hands in his. "You aren't leaving."

"What?" she asked. She tried to pull away but he held onto her.

_Do something, idiot! _Knife Ears tried to will Anders to do something romantic, like bite her scruff and mount her.

"Orzammar," Anders said the first word that popped into his mind. "Remember Orzammar? The wedding Harrowmont gave us when the Chantry was hunting us like dogs?" He watched her face soften. She swallowed hard and looked down.

"Of course," she said softly. "What happened to us?"

"We got stupid, Neria. I got stupid. I'm sorry. Don't walk out that door." He watched her face collapse into sorrow.

"It's too late for us, Anders. It's been five years. We should just be adult about this and move on. I'll ask the dwarves how they undo their marriages and we can just go on with our lives." There were tears streaming down her face.

"You don't want that, Neria. You wouldn't have brought me that hideous orange scarf if you did."

Her chest heaved with a great sob. "It's ugly, I know. I'm sorry… I should've just bought you one. I thought if I made it myself…."

"Shush, yes it is ugly, but I love it, elfie. I love it because you made it." He hugged her to his chest, willing her to stop crying. "Let's go back to Orzammar and get married again. We can start over again, okay?"

"Could we? Won't we just end up in the same place we are now? You're so… spontaneous and carefree—"

"You're being nice. I'm immature and impulsive," he said. "While you're responsible, dependable, always accountable. You always do the right thing."

"I'm boring, I know," she said. She sighed heavily and slumped against Anders. "Can we make it work?"

"Yes! We just need to learn to be a little like each other. I take on your traits, you take on mine, and we'll be perfect." He kissed the top of her head. "Can you do it, elfie? I can. _I will_. For you."

She tipped her head up and looked into his eyes. "You'll come back with me? To Amaranthine? But what about…," she looked around the room at all the cats, "all this?"

"The Drydens can take care of them or find them new homes. Just let me take Pounce, all right?" He squeezed her harder, knowing it was a done-deal.

"And I'll take the baby!" She smiled for the first time since she arrived, feeling a great weight life from her chest.

Anders grinned at her. He bent to meet her lips in the first kiss they'd shared in five years. Five long, bitter years melted away in moment that rekindled a breathless romance, one that had flourished under adversity, but dwindled in prosperity.

There was a slow, muffled thudding sound. The newly reunited pair turned to see Knife Ears sitting up on his back feet, beating his forepaws together in eerily quiet applause. He leapt aside and sat, watching them. His human didn't disappoint. He scooped up the female who buried her face in his neck and giggled.

The last Knife Ears saw of the human male, he returned briefly to pick up the old cat, Pounce, and Knife Ears' kitten.

"So long, fella. Be good, okay?" Anders bid the freakish cat farewell.

Knife Ears sat up on his hind legs and touched his forepaw to his head, as if to salute his human mage and progenitor.

_**Epilogue**_

Knife Ears' kitten, who was renamed the unfortunate name of Baby—that he outgrew quickly—founded the line of cats that became known as the nerari. Like their canine equivalents, the mabari, they were highly intelligent, and, unlike the dogs, had opposable thumbs. They became beloved pets to the aristocracy and even the Orlesians, for once, clamored to have one of the fashionable pets.

Centuries later, the nerari executed a brilliant coup that resulted in mabari losing their magical intelligence, and so they reigned alone as the most highly sought after pet in all of Thedas and the mabari became just dogs.

**The End**

_**Note: **Thanks for reading. Would love feed back of any sort! Please review if you have a moment._


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